Author: /KL.7, a European behavioral design agency, Copenhagen, Denmark. www.kl7.dk

Making office workers healthier:
A public health intervention making office workers use their height-adjustableoffice desks more, conducted for LINAK®

Together with /KL.7, one of the leading behavioural design agencies in Europe, LINAK® set out to investigate design, andtest solutions that could help close the intention/action gap - having a height-adjustable office desks, but not using it oronly using it to a small extent.

Inactive behaviour is a risk for our health
The majority in developed countries are sitting down mostof the day while working, when watching television, wheneating, when transporting ourselves, etc. We spend up to12 hours a day sitting, many of these hours during work(van der Ploeg, Chey, Korda, Banks, & Bauman, 2012).
This heavy physical inactivity, also known as “sedentarybehaviour”, has negative effects on our health. Studies havefound a direct link between physical inactivity and healthissues such as diabetes mellitus, an increased risk of certain
types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity as well as an
overall increased mortality (van Uffelen, et al., 2010) (vanUffelen, et al., 2010; Schmid & Leitzmann, 2014). Further,studies indicate that the health risks of physical inactivity atwork cannot be changed “just” by being active in leisuretime (Hamilton et al., 2008) (Schmid & Leitzmann, 2014). In
short, the human body was evolved to move – not to sit.
Height adjustable office desks:
healthy but forgot to be used
To minimise sedentary behaviour at work, height-adjustable
desks are on the rise in more and more office environments.
Office workers that are mainly desk based should atReminders
work+ 12min

Non-users

least spend 2 hours/day of standing and light activity
during work hours for achieving the greatest health risk
reduction of physical inactivity (Buckley, et al., 2015).
However, while more and more office workers are equippedwith height-adjustable desks to gain a healthier lifestyle,
not all of them actually use them. One common reason
is that they simply forget to use it during their workday.
Typically, we use our limited executive mental functions formore – seemingly – urgent matters (Dolan & et. al., 2010).
In psychological literature, this phenomenon is also known
as the action/intention gap.
Motivating average users to use theirheight-adjustable office desks
Most guidelines for height-adjustable desks give advice to“heavy users 1”. The intention of this research was, however,to find a way to motivate and support “light users2” to use
their height adjustable office desks - supporting the average
office worker to obtain a more active working day.
MethodResearch suggests that interventions that target modifications in the working environment on the individual-level,+ 43minLight-users

Reminders increased the participants’ standing time. The standing time of non-users increased by 12 min. Light-users doubled their standing time byadding 43 min per day to their base time, going from 36 min to 79 min of standing per day.

1
2

Users that stand up more than 20 % of the total time registeredUsers that stand up 20 % or less of the total time registeredMaking office workers healthier: A public health intervention making office workers use their height-adjustableoffice desks more, conducted for LINAK®

produce the largest reduction in workplace sitting time(Dunstan, et al., 2013). Thus, LINAK A/S tested two reminder solutions in three different workplaces in Denmark for 2-3weeks. Workplace 1 (27 participants) and workplace 2 (21participants) received email reminders as intervention while
workplace 3 (17 participants) received tactile and auditory
reminders as intervention. Data was collected through software and hardware measuring if the desk was in a standing
or in a sitting position, and if the person was at his/her desk.

“We spend up to 12 hours a day sitting, many of these hours during work(van der Ploeg, Chey, Korda, Banks, &Bauman, 2012).”Results
Because of interventions, light users’ standing time increased from 7.6% (36.3 min/day) in the baseline during
an eight-hour working day to 16.4% (78.9 min/day) during
the intervention period. While there was no effect on heavyusers, reminders had a positive effect on the office usersthat were not using their height-adjustable office desk at
all – increasing their standing time to 12.3 min/day. In short,the interventions worked better, the less the office workers
stood up in the baseline period.
Conclusion
LINAK® A/S wanted to test if reminders would increase theodds of office workers using their height-adjustable officedesks. Both interventions tested in the current pilot study
showed promising effect on increasing standing time for
office workers using their desk 20 % or less of the time tobegin with. While it depends on individual factors to forma new habit – ranging from a few weeks to a few months –interventions appear to offer a promising tool for supporting
office workers to increase the use their height adjustableoffice desks (Clear, 2014).
More information
Contact your local LINAK office to receive the full report.

LINAK.COM/DESKLINE

References
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How Long Does It Actually Take to Form a New Habit? (Backedby Science). Retrieved May 1, 2017, from The Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-clear/forming-newhabits_b_5104807.html
Dolan, P., & et. al. (2010).
Mindspace - influencing behaviour through public policy. Institute for government. Cabinet Office.
Dunstan, D. W., Wiesner, G., Eakin, E. G., Neuhaus, M., Owen,N., LaMontagne, A. D., . . . Healy, G. N. (2013).
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